1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a game apparatus which performs a game using music which is played based on stored music data, and in particular relates to such a game apparatus which, along with extracting corresponding music data based on characters which have been inputted and displaying specifying information with greater priority than other extracted music data, also plays music related to the music data of the specifying information which has been selected, and which furthermore is capable of performing the selection of music which is to be used for the game simply and surely by displaying an image related to music data.
2. Description of the Prior Art
From the past, with a karaoke device or a music game apparatus which is endowed with a selecting function of a desired piece of music from a plurality of stored musical items by a user, and a playing function of the music or the voice related to the item of music which has been selected, it has been general to provide a search function in which a search is performed within the items of music, in order for the piece of music which the user desires to be simply and easily selected from among the plurality of items of music which are registered in advance.
Here, as a search function for searching through the pieces of music, there is a method of inputting a character string which is to be used as, for example, the title of the piece of music or the name of the artist, and of extracting the piece of music which corresponds to this character string. For example, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2000-99048 (in particular, in pages 4 through 5 and FIGS. 4 through 8 thereof), there is described, in relation to a music selection and reservation device which is used while being connected by cable to a karaoke performance device, such a music selection and reservation device which can select a piece of music quickly and moreover simply and conveniently, by, each time it receives character input operation from a user according to some type of search menu from which the user has made a selection, searching automatically through karaoke music items with the character string which has been inputted, and, along with displaying a list of the results of this search, transferring a play reservation signal for the piece of music which the user has specified to the karaoke performance device.
However, with this music selection and reservation device described in the Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2000-99048, as the information which specifies the pieces of music which are displayed as the search results, only the names of the pieces of music and the names of the artists are displayed. Accordingly, if there is some vagueness in the user's remembrance of the name of the song or the name of the artist, then, with only the name of the song and the name of the artist being displayed as in this prior art, there is a danger that the user will not be able to select the piece of music which he desires in a reliable manner.
Furthermore, in particular when the number of the items of music which have been collected together is very great, as the result of searching, a large number of names of songs and names of artists which resemble one another may be displayed, so that a long time period comes to be required for the task of selecting an item of music, and accordingly the burden on the user is increased. Moreover, there is a danger that he may mistakenly select a piece of music other than the one which he desires, which is undesirable.